Key Truth: God graciously preserves His people because of His compassionate mission for the life of the world.   

Jonah Pursues God

Jonah 1:17-2:10

What is the internal dialogue of your soul when you are going through times of difficulty? 
Which story has the louder voice: God’s mercy in Christ, or your sin and failure?

“Let us learn to weigh well what is here said; for when the Lord heavily afflicts us, it is then a legitimate and seasonable time for prayer.  But we know that [most people] despair, and do not usually offer their prayers freely to God, unless their minds are in a calm state; and yet God especially invites us to Himself when we are reduced to extremities.  Let this, then, which Jonah declares of himself, come to our minds,—that he cried to God from [as it were] hell itself: …Though Jonah then was not only like a dead man, but also on the confines of perdition, he yet believed that God would be merciful if he fled to Him. …[T]he servants of God do not gain the victory without great struggle.  We must fight, and indeed strenuously, that we may conquer.  Jonah then in this song shows that he was agitated with great trouble and hard contests: yet this conviction was firmly fixed in his heart,—that God was to be sought, and would not be sought in vain, as He is ever ready to bring help to His people whenever they cry to Him.”

John Calvin, Commentaries on Jonah

In what ways are you cultivating the ability to remember the Lord in times of distress?

“…at the heart of his trials, when the tunnel through which he is passing seems to be unendingly gloomy, Jonah begins to see light and hope.  Most of all he realizes that his experience has had a purpose.  That is the difference between condemnation and chastisement.”

Sinclair Ferguson, Man Overboard!: The Story of Jonah

Application: 

Jonah 1:17-2:10 teaches us that:

-We must work diligently to raise our minds to Christ in our distress.

-God will graciously sustain our faith in Him through times of trial and discipline.

-God has a compassionate purpose in the trials and discipline He sends upon us.